One of the hardest things I help my clients with is loving those parts of themselves that they dislike–and sometimes even hate. Most of the time these are parts that sabotage their efforts in doing the work they are meant to be doing. For example, parts that keep my clients from being consistent with their meditation practice, parts that say yes to demands from others even when my clients want to say no, parts that cause my clients to explode in anger, and parts that are so sensitive that they get easily overwhelmed by the world.
My clients want to push these parts away, get rid of them, lock them up and never see them again. Often they have been trying to “fix” these parts for years. But, alas, this is not how it works. As much as my clients try to get rid of what they label as “difficult” parts, these aspects of themselves are with them for life.
The third practice in my book, Answering Your Inner Calling, which I call “Naming and Embracing Your Fears,” offers valuable information and practical exercises to work with these internal parts (see my book Answering Your Inner Calling for more). That guidance is based on the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of psychotherapy, in which I was trained, and have been a client and student of, for a decade now.
In my book, I divide the process of transforming these parts into five stages. Each of these stages and the exercises I suggest are essential in the process of healing those internal parts that may be sabotaging you.
However, here I want to distill that guidance on how to transform your parts, especially those parts you hate, to its most fundamental essence: The parts you hate will only transform when loved unconditionally.
Again, the parts you hate will only transform when loved unconditionally. It’s that simple and that hard.
Fortunately, your Soul loves every part of you unconditionally. It does not have favorite parts. In fact, your Soul understands that it is precisely those parts you dislike the most, that often hold your greatest gifts.
In my work with clients I have seen this hundreds of times. For example:
- The part that kept sabotaging a client’s meditation practice but when met with unconditional love was able to shift and help my client connect with her dormant clairvoyant abilities.
- The part that kept overwhelming a client with its sensitivity but when met with unconditional love opened my client’s skills as a healer.
- The part that a client hated because it would explode in, what seemed like, illogical anger, when met with unconditional love revealed a passionate, fiery nature that guided my client to share what she had been stifling for a long time.
All of these were instances of inner parts that my clients truly disliked and sometimes hated. Parts that they had wanted to push away but their Soul guided them instead to embrace. In some of these examples, healing the parts that had sabotaging behaviors took some time. In other instances, the healing was faster. This is not because some clients were more gifted than others–it’s just that your Soul has an inherent wisdom and it knows the pace that is right for you.
However, the essential, non-negotiable component in the above transformations is that my clients had to be willing to let their Soul love these parts. Notice I didn’t say they had to love these parts. My clients just had to allow their Soul to love these parts that they had disliked, and maybe even hated, for such a long time.
Saying yes to your Soul’s love is the hardest step. You are usually ready for this after you’ve gone through years of trying to fix, resist, and exile these difficult parts, only to find that after all that effort, they are still with you.
And then you finally understand that there must be another way.
Unconditional love is that way, and your Soul is an expert in that.
Blessings,
Lisa
Audio version of blog post
Follow-Up
Reflect on which parts of you are the hardest ones for you to accept, those parts that you wish were gone or that you knew how to fix, parts that you might sometimes even hate. For this exercise, allow yourself to let go of any desire to fix or get rid of these parts.
If this feels too overwhelming, you can set a timer for whatever amount of time feels right and tell yourself that after the timer goes off you can go back to disliking these parts.
But while the timer is on, you are going to give your Soul permission to radiate these parts with unconditional love. You are not going to get in the way with any desire to fix, change, analyze or even understand this part. You are just going to bear witness as your Soul infuses this part with love.
You can begin by saying a prayer such as this,
Beautiful Soul,
I know you love all of my parts unconditionally. But I am human, and these parts of me that I am bringing to you are parts that I dislike, that I want to get rid of, and sometimes even hate.
Fill me with your light so that I will not get in the way as you send these parts your healing, unconditional love.
Thank you.
Now, just breathe and allow your Soul’s love to flow through you to these parts. If you want to, you can bring the palms of your hands to rest over your heart as you do this.
Repeat this practice as often as you are guided.
Audio version of follow-up